It doesn't cost anything to say, 'Nice job,' and it really could pay

Welcome to our weekly small business blog, which looks at issues affecting the entrepreneurial economy in Northeast Ohio and beyond.

A job well done

Most employers understand the value of praising their workers. But relatively few do it right.

So says this story from Entrepreneur.com, which includes comments from Wayne Nemeroff, a psychologist and co-founder/CEO of PsyMax Solutions, a Cleveland-based provider of “integrated human capital management tools."

Praise “involves very little effort and produces a lot in return,” according to Entrepreneur.com. “It's a no-brainer, even for people who are otherwise ingrates.”

That's why you should give praise. But how do you do it?

Most management experts “stress the importance of specificity,” according to the story.

“You want to balance praise with constructive feedback," Dr. Nemeroff says. He suggests, “Recall a particular situation and describe a specific behavior; acknowledge the impact the behavior or action had on the group or the project or the action or on you.”

Among other suggestions for effective praise:

Do it now. “The closer the recognition is to the behavior, the more likely it will be repeated,” Entrepreneur.com says.

Do it often. “The more you message what's important to you, the more people will focus on that,” the story notes.

Praise followed by criticism is not praise.

Praise followed by praise is probably a little too much praise.

On second thought …

Tax breaks for angel investors, which have cropped up in recent years in about two dozen states as a means of stimulating job growth, are “coming under greater scrutiny, particularly as states face budget pressure,” according to thisWall Street Journal story.

Many states' programs “expired at the end of 2011, were stripped of funding or were placed under a moratorium,” The Journal reports.

While almost everyone likes a tax break, the newspaper says the National Governors Association, in a 2008 brief, noted that “even angels are in disagreement as to the economic growth benefits of tax credits."

Scott Shane, the A. Malachi Mixon III professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the North Coast Angel network, tells The Journal that the incentives — which range from breaks on 15% of financing in Colorado to 100% in Hawaii — might indeed be misguided as a matter of policy.

He tells The Journal that the angel investor tax credits likely do little to boost investing — and even less to create jobs.

"If I think I'm going to lose my money, a tax credit isn't going to make up for that," he says.

Sticker shock

The Lakewood lawyer representing Paul Ceglia, who was fined for failing to turn over evidence in his ownership lawsuit against Facebook Inc., argues his client shouldn't also have to reimburse the company for legal fees of as much as $716 an hour that he called “stratospheric.”

Bloomberg reports that U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio this month fined Mr. Ceglia $5,000 “after ruling the New York man had ignored a court order requiring him to give Facebook access to his e-mail accounts.” The judge also ordered Ceglia to reimburse the company for the legal fees it incurred in pursuing the issue.

Mr. Ceglia's lawyer, Dean Boland of Lakewood, objected to the size of the fees in court papers filed Jan. 30 in federal court in Buffalo, “saying they're not justified by the ‘garden-variety' issues presented by the case,” according to Bloomberg.

The news service notes that Mr. Boland “also argued that Facebook's lawyers, from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, shouldn't charge New York City prices for Buffalo work.”

“Defendants make no showing that a firm in the Western District could not handle this case,” Mr. Boland wrote, referring to the federal judicial district that includes Buffalo. “Within this district, there are many firms that routinely handle large contract dispute cases.”

In his lawsuit, Mr. Ceglia claims he has a 2003 contract signed by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg that gave him half-ownership of the company.